Wrong, early on he was a boy set upon the throne (by his mother), with the help of the murder of his stepfather. However, he became a maniac later on. He had his mom killed FFS. If he was so popular, Vespasian wouldn't have demolished is fething golden palace to build the Colosseum.
He was a maniac. Perhaps not as much as Commodus or Elgabalus (that's more a reflection on the late Princeps), but a tyrant nonetheless.
Either way, to the point of the OP, as I pointed to before, he was dead either way. You just miss out on a semi-memorable quote attributed to a sociopath with power.
People often forget poor Sporus and the horror heaped upon this poor soul. Nero was a sadist and the attempts to excuse him of his brutality gloss over his actions in the creation of his last wife.
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